Saturday, June 02, 2007

Tigers Get Some Relief

Tonight, the Tigers held on to their 4 run lead in the 9th as they beat the Indians 9-5. Chad Durbin allowed 5 runs on 8 hits and 3 walks in 5 1/3 innings but left with an 8-5 lead. Then Tim Byrdak, Jason Grilli, Bobby Seay and Zach Miner combined for 3 2/3 shutout innings to preserve the victory. Tonight, the relievers were mixed and matched as opposed to last night when it was left mostly to Todd Jones.

I'm not exactlly sure who was making the managerial decisions tonight. Jim Leyland was thrown out of the game in the 4th inning for arguing balls and strikes with every umpire on the field for about 10 minutes. Gene Lamont took over the managerial duties with help from Lloyd McClendon but I would guess that Leyland was somehow delivering instructions. This is how I wished Leyland had managed last night's game. It might not have worked last night but I think mixing and matching would have been a better strategy than leaving Jones in the game to give up 5 runs when he obviously did not have it.

Tonight, you could say that it was the indians who gave the game away. With the scored tied 5-5 going into the 6th inning, the Tigers proceeded to score 3 unearned runs thanks to errors by Josh Barfield and Jhonny Peralta and a misplay by Casey Blake. They did do some heavy hitting though as they had 16 hits including 7 doubles and a home run. The hitting heroes were the amazing Magglio Ordonez (home run, double, 2 singles) and Pudge Rodriguez (2 doubles and 2 singles).

The victory tonight broke a 5 game losing streak to the Indians. They will try to gain a split in the 4 game series tomorrow afternoon when Jeremy Bonderman faces Jeremy Sowers.